Legal Aid Society (New York City)

Oldest and largest not-for-profit organization in the US providing free legal services for clients who cannot afford to pay for counsel since 1876. Has offices in 25 locations in all five counties of NYC.Organization website

Primary geographic focus: New YorkOrganization type(s): Provider

The Legal Aid Society is a private, not-for-profit legal services organization, the oldest and largest in the nation, dedicated since 1876 to providing quality legal representation to low-income New Yorkers. It is dedicated to one simple but powerful belief: that no New Yorker should be denied access to justice because of poverty.

The Society handles 300,000 individual cases and matters annually and provides a comprehensive range of legal services in three areas: the Civil, Criminal and Juvenile Rights Practices. Unlike the Society’s Criminal and Juvenile Rights Practices, which are constitutionally mandated and supported by government, the Civil Practice relies heavily on private contributions.

The Legal Aid Society has a comprehensive city-wide legal services program for clients. The Society’s legal program operates three major practices – Civil, Criminal, and Juvenile Rights.

Joel StashenkoNew York Law Journal
June 29, 2015
A new resolution adopted by the New York legislature calls for fair and adequate legal representation for all New Yorkers in matters related to essentials of life.News Story

Daniel MedinaGuardian
July 1, 2015
A watchdog report reveals the Administration of Children’s Services has abused its power in family courts, wrongly taken children into custody and inadequately assisted those it claims to help. News Story

Gotham Gazette (NYC)
July 15, 2015
Tenant advocates disappointed by the rent laws deal reached by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature at the end of session suddenly have a spark of hope, weeks after the backroom negotiations came to an end.News Story

Barbara Ross, Rikki ReynaNew York Daily News
August 10, 2015
Eighteen residents say in a lawsuit that the building’s owner has raised their rents illegally. The increases are designed to force them out of their gentrifying neighborhood.Feature

John SuricoVICE News
October 1, 2015
Conversations with men and women who sleep at various shelters across town suggest so-called warrant squads, a holdover from the days of Rudolph Giuliani—a mayor known for combating homelessness aggressively in the 90s—is still alive and well in 2015.Op-Ed

Mark D. Levine, Mary BrosnahanNew York Times (NYT)
October 19, 2015
With over 58,000 people in our shelter system every night, and thousands more sleeping on the streets, concern about homelessness in New York City has reached a fever pitch.Interview

Victoria BekiempisNewsweek
November 8, 2015
Newsweek chatted with two of the lawyers working on the case that might change youth homelessness in New York City, the Legal Aid Society's Beth Hofmeister and Kimberly Forte. Letter to Editor

Nikita StewartNew York Times (NYT)
January 8, 2016
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in his latest attempt to address New York City’s homelessness crisis, unveiled a plan on Friday to add 300 shelter beds for older teenagers.Interview

Brian JosephsVICE News
February 12, 2016
Kimberly Forte, supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City, speaks about the challenges of counting the number of people experiencing homelessness.News Story

Rebecca Davis-O’Brien, Josh DawseyWall Street Journal (WSJ)
March 18, 2016
City officials have turned over millions of documents to the federal prosecutors who are conducting a broad investigation into health and safety conditions at New York City Housing Authority buildings and at homeless shelters.Column

Elizabeth RubinNew York Times (NYT)
April 2, 2016
International law holds that asylum seekers should be detained only in unusual circumstances. Yet our detention centers are filling up with people like Samey.News Story

Sarah RyleyNew York Daily News, ProPublica
May 2, 2016
A letter from legal groups to the New York City’s Law Department warned city officials that “vulnerable tenants” are often ensnared in nuisance abatements.News Story

Matt SedenskyAssociated Press (AP)
May 7, 2016
Two years after the owner of Prospect Park Residence announced the building in the trendy Park Slope neighborhood would be sold and converted to condos, its fate remains in limbo.Column

Nina BernsteinNew York Times (NYT)
A detailed report by a coalition of more than 100 nonprofit groups shows that the crisis in Ms. Negron’s family has been repeated in hundreds of households covered by Senior Health Partners.News Story

Elizabeth A. HarrisNew York Times (NYT)
September 1, 2016
The city’s Department of Homeless Services is changing its policies to try to reduce the extraordinary disruption that homelessness causes in all aspects of a child’s life.News Story

Jessica Silver-GreenbergNew York Times (NYT)
September 26, 2016
On Monday, the City Council held a hearing on a bill that would make New York City the first jurisdiction in the country to guarantee lawyers for any low-income residents facing eviction.News Story

Jake OffenhartzVICE News
September 29, 2016
Under New York City's opaque and arbitrary civil forfeiture system, seizing money from a woman not accused of a crime is a perfectly legal thing to do.Audio , News Story

Cindy RodriguezWNYC (NY)
October 10, 2016
Properties get flipped for large profits and people get pushed out. It’s the reality of hot real estate markets across the country. But when a coveted building is full of sick, fragile, senior citizens, the result can have devastating consequences – even death.News Story

Amy Zimmer, Jeanmarie EvellyDNAinfo (NYC and Chicago)
October 25, 2016
While the de Blasio administration has increased funding for free legal services for tenants, lawyers working with low-income New Yorkers say that isn't solving the problem, citing the arsenal of strategies landlords can use to evict rent-stabilized tenants.News Story

Nikita StewartNew York Times (NYT)
February 27, 2017
In a settlement that could help thousands of families avoid eviction, New York State will substantially increase the monthly rent subsidies it provides to low-income families with children in New York City, a move that could help reduce the number of people in homeless shelters.News Story

Mark ChiusanoamNewYork
March 24, 2017
Particularly if the tenants don’t have a lawyer. Landlords are represented over 90 percent of the time, and often don’t show up in person. Slightly more than 25 percent of tenants lawyer up, meaning many come in person to argue their own cases.Op-Ed

Nikita StewartNew York Times (NYT)
May 18, 2017
The center and the Legal Aid Society filed the lawsuit two years ago after several years of trying to help disabled people get the services and accommodations on a case-by-case basis.Audio , News Story

Beth FertigWNYC (NY)
June 22, 2017
Ever since President Donald Trump took office, immigration advocates from Los Angeles to New York have claimed there are more sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in courthouses looking to detain people.Audio , News Story

Beth FertigWNYC (NY)
June 29, 2017
Public defenders claim immigration officers have already made more arrests inside and outside state courts so far in 2017 than they did in the previous two years combined. News Story

Jillian Jorgensen, Erin DurkinNew York Daily News
August 1, 2017
The city’s $26 million will not go to pay for lawyers for immigrants convicted of 170 serious crimes — a restriction de Blasio had insisted on — but anonymous private donors have stepped in with $250,000 to aid those who can’t get the taxpayer money.News Story

Rebecca Davis-O’BrienWall Street Journal (WSJ)
April 5, 2015
New York officials are seeking to increase funding to provide poor people with free legal services in civil proceedings such as eviction and immigration mattersNews Story

Mara GayWall Street Journal (WSJ)
October 1, 2014
How the court system is influenced by the influx of unaccompanied children and how legal aid is responding to the crisis in the face of a lawyer shortage.News Story

Tania KarasNew York Law Journal
September 23, 2014
Despite additional funding, the justice gap is nowhere close to being closed testified multiple people at a Lippman's Task Force public hearing.News Story

Anne BarnardNew York Times (NYT)
May 1, 2012
To help the many who cannot afford legal services, New York will become the first state to require lawyers to perform unpaid work before being licensed to practice.News Story